Never Again Without Equity – the NAWE Principle

The insane hours and pressures associated with a startup or any new business initiative take their toll on your health. Stress levels are high and you are likely to just go home and zone out instead of spending time relaxing or exercising. This is sacrificing your long term health in the name of business objectives.

I am world class at doing this and have been hospitalised with ectopic heart beats and full blown anxiety attacks which have pretty much the same symptoms as a heart attack. Over time I have become better at dealing with stress, but recent events have driven home the need to talk about this to you all with the stories of a couple of good friends who have both had heart problems in their mid-thirties – stress induced.

I want to talk about this in case you recognize a bit of yourself in these stories and can act on it.

Also, if you are going to take yourself into heart attack territory by working on a startup, then you need to make sure you are compensated through a decent amount of equity. The reason for this is that most of us only have one or at most two startups in us before we realise the stress is too much. So, if you are going to go there have the self-awareness to know that this will likely be your one shot at the big money. It was my personal experiences almost killing myself for a ground breaking large scale government funded clean energy technology breakthrough project that made me come up with the NAWE principle.

On to the stories of my friends – names and details changed of course.

Case 1) David joined a small wholesale distribution company in his late twenties. The economy was starting to boom, and he quickly became an integral part of the growth of the company. In the course of eight years they went from being a three truck operation with a single warehouse to being one of the biggest distributors in the country with over 60 locations, a large fleet of trucks and 65% market share.

David was always reliable. At work from early till late. His wife and kids rarely saw him as he was always at work fighting fires.

When a company grows that fast nothing ever works as it should, and as one of the senior managers he was there to make sure things worked out. The owners always looked to him to solve problems because he would always step up to make sure things were done.

He wasn’t sleeping well, drinking way too much and wasn’t eating well.

At 36 – boom – he had a heart attack and had to quit his job. His only thanks after being an integral part of the team that grew the company was a pat on the back and a hand shake –(REMEMBER - GET EQUITY!!!).

David took a few years out to reprioritise his life, and now talks about how he tries to enjoy every day, and look for solace in religion. I really appreciate this new David, but unfortunately he is still taking responsibility for other people's problems and working really long hours for a new company – again without equity.

Case 2) Debby has been running a startup for a few years. Debby has been living hand to mouth for two years and it is getting to her – she is 35 and she is now having stress-induced heart problems.

Stress-induced heart problems are unusual in that you may not have clogged arteries or problems with the hear muscles. Doctors haven’t really figured out the exact cause, but they know that the underlying cause is extreme stress.

Debby is one of the smartest and most commercially and people savvy entrepreneurs I have ever met.  It doesn’t matter what life throws at her she sees the opportunity in it. She adapts, evolves, deals with it and moves on. She communicates her vision better than anyone I have ever met. I have seen her walk into a room of complete strangers and have them asking how they can be involved within minutes.

Customers do sign up for her service and she has enough money to trickle on from month to month. Every day the service is getting better, but somehow it is never quite good enough for the flood of customers or investors to come in. “Some day soon,” is her normal refrain.

Debby keeps the faith in her vision and I truly do believe that it will come good for her soon – if she can stay alive. You see, two years of getting up every day not knowing where the next sale is coming from and dealing with all the issues of the startup has gotten to her. Optimisim isn’t enough to counteract 18 hour days and extreme uncertainty. At least Debby has a lot of equity in her company.

So, if your relationships and your health are suffering from too much uncertainty and stress here are a few tips for you.

1.   Spend time with family and friends talking and listening to conversations about non-work related and preferably trivial matters.
2. Talk to your partner about what’s happening in your life. This can be hard as they mightn’t be able to help. For example, I found that if I shared even 5% of my average day my now ex-wife would have a full blown panic attack and wouldn’t be able to function herself. What I have found is that sharing important decision points or moral quandaries is good.
3. If you don’t have a partner, then get a dog – they are always happy to see you. They like routine and force you to do things. “Come on – let’s play fetch, you know you want to.”
4.  Get good sleep – this is an old saying but it really is true. At least sleep in on weekends, and if you can go to bed early and wake up when your body makes you.
5. Watch your caffeine intake. I don’t mean that caffeine will give you a heart problem. I mean this in the sense that caffeine is a stimulant and over the longer term it will affect your adrenal system. You know when your adrenal system is overloaded through stress and caffeine as you are absolutely exhausted the next day. Ever notice how movie stars are hospitalised for exhaustion – that’s just a nice way of saying they have been abusing cocaine to the point their adrenal system has gone on the fritz and they are truly exhausted.
6. Avoid excessive hours – I know this is hard to do. I do project work at short notice and work insane and intense hours. Now that I am in my forties I should know better. I can still do those kind of hours, but unlike in my thirties when I just bounced back and went on to the next job, I now collapse for a week or two afterwards and almost inevitably have a cold. I worked insane hours for most of the last month and I am barely functioning right now. You can’t keep those hours up. Learn how to delegate and hire people if you need to.
7. Get a hobby. Painting, team sport, music, gardening, or whatever floats your boat. The main thing is that when you have something pleasurable to focus on it completely distracts your mind from all the other thoughts that are running through it. It is like meditation – you go to another place. If you have trouble working out what to do as a hobby, think back to the things you liked to do as a teenager – odds are that you haven’t changed.
8. Leave your work at work. This is one of the hardest to put into practice, especially with the continuous urgency of working in a startup. Make time to deal with issues during work hours. If your work is bleeding into your home life, then try keeping a notepad or your smartphone next to your bed. When you think of something that needs to be done you can write it down so you can deal with it the next day rather than mulling over it all night.
9. Delegate upwards and downwards. Let’s be blunt – often senior managers in company get there because they can make decisions in stressful situations and not get overly stressed. This is a polite way of saying that senior management is populated by an unusually high number of people with sociapathic tendencies – i.e. very low empathy and aggressive. If you are known for getting things done and they just pile the work on you then you need to learn to bounce things back up – “ Sorry, but I don’t have time to deal with that this week, what would you like done by when. If it is truly urgent, you should check in with Francis.”  Also, you need to learn to delegate downwards better. Yes, things take longer and need a lot of correction and quality control, but you will get more done in the end.
10. Forgive yourself – most of all you need to realise that you are only human and despite your need to get everything done properly and never disappoint anyone – it’s not possible. I am not talking about giving up and accepting sloppy work. I am talking about truly forgiving yourself for not being able to do things as you expect they should be done.

Then there’s all the usual stuff about diet, reducing alcohol consumption, etc. That’s all true, but ironically that is as much a symptom as the problem. If you actively work on reducing your stress levels you will find that your diet and drinking get back in control.

And make sure you have a good equity stake in whatever it is you are doing, so even if you do have the heart attack you can make some money out of it – NAWE!